Certainly not, replied Aper, nor shall the present age, unheard and undefended, be degraded by a conspiracy. But before you sound to arms, I wish to know, who are to be reckoned among the ancients? At what point of time [a] do you fix your favourite æra? When you talk to me of antiquity, I carry my view to the first ages of the world, and see before me Ulysses and Nestor, who flourished little less than [] thirteen hundred years ago. Your retrospect, it seems, goes no farther back than to Demosthenes and Hyperides; men who lived in the times of Philip and Alexander, and indeed survived them both. The interval, between Demosthenes and the present age, is little more than [c] four hundred years; a space of time, which, with a view to the duration of human life, may be called long; but, as a portion of that immense tract of time which includes the different ages of the world, it shrinks into nothing, and seems to be but yesterday. For if it be true, as Cicero says in his treatise called Hortensius, that the great and genuine year is that period in which the heavenly bodies revolve to the station from which their source began; and if this grand rotation of the whole planetary system requires no less than twelve thousand nine hundred and fifty-four years [d] of our computation, it follows that Demosthenes, your boasted ancient, becomes a modern, and even our contemporary; nay, that he lived in the same year with ourselves; I had almost said, in the same month [e].
XVII. But I am in haste to pass to our Roman orators. Menenius Agrippa [a] may fairly be deemed an ancient. I take it, however, that he is not the person, whom you mean to oppose to the professors of modern eloquence. The æra, which you have in view, is that of [] Cicero and Cæsar; of Cælius [c] and Calvus; of Brutus [d], Asinius, and Messala. Those are the men, whom you place in the front of hour line; but for what reason they are to be classed with the ancients, and not, as I think they ought to be, with the moderns, I am still to learn. To begin with Cicero; he, according to the account of Tiro, his freedman, was put to death on the seventh of the ides of December, during the consulship of Hirtius and Pansa [e], who, we know, were both cut off in the course of the year, and left their office vacant for Augustus and Quintus Pedius. Count from that time six and fifty years to complete the reign of Augustus; three and twenty for that of Tiberius, four for Caligula, eight and twenty for Claudius and Nero, one for Galba, Otho, and Vitellius, and finally six from the accession of Vespasian to the present year of our felicity, we shall have from the death of Cicero a period of about [f] one hundred and twenty years, which may be considered as the term allotted to the life of man. I myself remember to have seen in Britain a soldier far advanced in years, who averred that he carried arms in that very battle [g] in which his countrymen sought to drive Julius Cæsar back from their coast. If this veteran, who served in the defence of his country against Cæsar's invasion, had been brought a prisoner to Rome; or, if his own inclination, or any other accident in the course of things, had conducted him thither, he might have heard, not only Cæsar and Cicero, but even ourselves in some of our public speeches.
In the late public largess [h] you will acknowledge that you saw several old men, who assured us that they had received more than once, the like distribution from Augustus himself. If that be so, might not those persons have heard Corvinus [] and Asinius? Corvinus, we all know, lived through half the reign of Augustus, and Asinius almost to the end. How then are we to ascertain the just boundaries of a century? They are not to be varied at pleasure, so as to place some orators in a remote, and others in a recent period, while people are still living, who heard them all, and may, therefore, with good reason rank them as contemporaries.
XVIII. From what I have said, I assume it as a clear position, that the glory, whatever it be, that accrued to the age in which those orators lived, is not confined to that particular period, but reaches down to the present time, and may more properly be said to belong to us, than to Servius Galba [a], or to Carbo [], and others of the same or more ancient date. Of that whole race of orators, I may freely say, that their manner cannot now be relished. Their language is coarse, and their composition rough, uncouth, and harsh; and yet your Calvus [c], your Cælius, and even your favourite Cicero, condescend to follow that inelegant style. It were to be wished that they had not thought such models worthy of imitation. I mean to speak my mind with freedom; but before I proceed, it will be necessary to make a preliminary observation, and it is this: Eloquence has no settled form: at different times it puts on a new garb, and changes with the manners and the taste of the age. Thus we find, that Gracchus [d], compared with the elder Cato [e], is full and copious; but, in his turn, yields to Crassus [f], an orator more polished, more correct, and florid. Cicero rises superior to both; more animated, more harmonious and sublime. He is followed by Corvinus [g], who has all the softer graces; a sweet flexibility in his style, and a curious felicity in the choice of his words. Which was the greatest orator, is not the question.
The use I make of these examples, is to prove that eloquence does not always wear the same dress, but, even among your celebrated ancients, has its different modes of persuasion. And be it remembered, that what differs is not always the worst. Yet such is the malignity of the human mind, that what has the sanction of antiquity is always admired; what is present, is sure to be condemned. Can we doubt that there have been critics, who were better pleased with Appius Cæcus [h] than with Cato? Cicero had his adversaries []: it was objected to him, that his style was redundant, turgid, never compressed, void of precision, and destitute of Attic elegance. We all have read the letters of Calvus and Brutus to your famous orator. In the course of that correspondence, we plainly see what was Cicero's opinion of those eminent men. The former [k] appeared to him cold and languid; the latter [l], disjointed, loose, and negligent. On the other hand, we know what they thought in return: Calvus did not hesitate to say, that Cicero was diffuse luxuriant to a fault, and florid without vigour. Brutus, in express terms, says, he was weakened into length, and wanted sinew. If you ask my opinion, each of them had reason on his side. I shall hereafter examine them separately. My business at present, is not in the detail: I speak of them in general terms.
XIX. The æra of ancient oratory is, I think, extended by its admirers no farther back than the time of Cassius Severus [a]. He, they tell us, was the first who dared to deviate from the plain and simple style of his predecessors. I admit the fact. He departed from the established forms, not through want of genius, or of learning, but guided by his own good sense and superior judgement. He saw that the public ear was formed to a new manner; and eloquence, he knew, was to find new approaches to the heart. In the early periods of the commonwealth, a rough unpolished people might well be satisfied with the tedious length of unskilful speeches, at a time when to make an harangue that took up the whole day, was the orator's highest praise. The prolix exordium, wasting itself in feeble preparation; the circumstantial narration, the ostentatious division of the argument under different heads, and the thousand proofs and logical distinctions, with whatever else is contained in the dry precepts of Hermagoras [] and Apollodorus, were in that rude period received with universal applause. To finish the picture, if your ancient orator could glean a little from the common places of philosophy, and interweave a few shreds and patches with the thread of his discourse, he was extolled to the very skies. Nor can this be matter of wonder: the maxims of the schools had not been divulged; they came with an air of novelty. Even among the orators themselves, there were but few who had any tincture of philosophy. Nor had they learned the rules of art from the teachers of eloquence.
In the present age, the tenets of philosophy and the precepts of rhetoric are no longer a secret. The lowest of our popular assemblies are now, I will not say fully instructed, but certainly acquainted with the elements of literature. The orator, by consequence, finds himself obliged to seek new avenues to the heart, and new graces to embellish his discourse, that he may not offend fastidious ears, especially before a tribunal where the judge is no longer bound by precedent, but determines according to his will and pleasure; not, as formerly, observing the measure of time allowed to the advocate, but taking upon himself to prescribe the limits. Nor is this all: the judge, at present, will not condescend to wait till the orator, in his own way, opens his case; but, of his own authority, reminds him of the point in question, and, if he wanders, calls him back from his digression, not without a hint that the court wishes to dispatch.